Tag: Texas

ExNotes Review: Texas

By Joe Berk

I’ve been on a James Michener kick lately.  You read my recent review of The Source.  After reading that wonderful novel I wanted more Michener, but I wanted one I had not read yet.  I read Alaska a few years ago and loved it.  I set my sights on Michener’s Texas, and it was stunning.  I used to live in Texas (El Paso and Fort Worth) in an earlier life and I thought I knew a little bit about that state’s glorious history.  It turns out I was right…what I knew was just a little bit.  Michener’s rich historical novel paints a much more enlightening picture.

At 1,419 pages, Texas is not a trivial read. It took me a good three weeks to get through it.  I recently had a weeklong teaching gig at a company in Wyoming; I took Texas with me and read it at lunch, at night, and in the hotel fitness center while riding the stationary bike.  I did the same thing at the gym here in California before and after I went to Wyoming.  You could say Michener helped me get in shape.  Before I realized it nearly every night I’d spent an hour on that bike.  Texas is that good.

Michener’s approach in both The Source and Texas is to create a setting that taps into the present, and then he jumps historically with fictional characters and stories based on what actually occurred.  In The Source, Michener’s temporal stretch extends to prehistoric times and the beginnings of religion.  In Texas, the rearward time jump is shorter (about four centuries).  The based-on-real-history fiction starts with the Spanish conquering Mexico, and then progresses through 21 generations. Each generation is a story detailing events and personalities, with richly-textured and believable characters.

The context for the group that ties all the above together is a five-person panel appointed by the Texas governor.  The panel is charged with defining the history curriculum for Texas schools.  What emerges is that the panelists are descendants of the people described in each of the novel’s historical tales.  It really is a masterful approach.

Parts of Texas reminded me of Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (another wonderful novel and a personal favorite I’ve read six or seven times already).  The stories in Texas and the way Michener ties them together from one generation to the next is nothing short of, well, I’ll use the word again:  Masterful.

While reading Texas, a friend mentioned that there also a DVD (Texas became a movie).  I bought the Texas DVD, but I haven’t watched it yet.  I don’t see how it can possibly be as good as the book (the book was that good).  Trust me on this:  Pick up a copy of Texas.  It is a hell of a story.

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Colt Walker: The Official Handgun of Texas

Governor Greg Abbott of the great state of Texas is a leader who gets it…he understands what “common sense” gun laws should be.  Need proof?

Good buddy Paul alerted me to Governor Abbott’s proclamation, and I like it.  I used to live in Texas, you know.  Sometimes I wonder why I moved.

In case you were wondering, here’s what the Resolution for such an act looks like:

SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The original 1847 Colt Walker pistol was
historically crucial to the early survival of the great State of Texas; and
WHEREAS, The original 1847 Colt Walker pistol was an essential tool in the defeat of the Mexican army during the Mexican-American War to reclaim Texas, the 28th state of the Union; and
WHEREAS, The co-inventor of the original 1847 Colt Walker pistol, Samuel Walker, was a captain in the Texas Rangers, the first state police agency in the country; and
WHEREAS, The original 1847 Colt Walker pistol was America’s first pistol to hold six rounds, otherwise known as a “six-shooter”; and
WHEREAS, The original 1847 Colt Walker pistol is still the most powerful black powder pistol in existence; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the 87th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby recognize the original 1847 Colt Walker pistol as the official handgun of the State of Texas.

That’s pretty cool.

We’ve written about the Walker Colt, its history, and the Uberti replica of that great gun before.  I haven’t shot mine yet, but that’s a character flaw I aim to correct in the near future.  When I do you’ll read about it here on the ExNotes blog.  At the risk of being redundant, here are a few excerpts from our previous Colt Walker blogs:

And one more…a photo I like a lot. It’s my Uberti duo…the Colt Walker and a Single Action Army.

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Colonel Colt and Captain Walker are in the building…

Two beautiful handguns, the ones you see above are.  The one on top is a Colt Walker, the one on the bottom the timeless Single Action Army.  But neither are actually Colts.  They are both Uberti guns, and both are magnificent.

The story is one for the ages, and it goes like this:  Samuel Colt invented the revolver, but he and his factory in Paterson, New Jersey couldn’t make a go of it.  Colt left the gunmaking business and went on to other ventures, but in the meantime, there were already a few Colt revolvers writing history in the American West.  Captain Sam Walker and his Texas Rangers used the early Colts with great success in battles on the Texas frontier.  Walker mentioned this to Colt, Colt asked for an endorsement, Walker said yes, and then he helped Colt design a new revolver to better meet frontier combat needs.  Walker drove the design requirements as he took a new commission in the US Army, and the Army ordered a cool thousand of the new 1847 Colt Walkers.  Colt was back in business, courtesy of Sam Walker, the Texas Rangers, and the US Army.

Thus was born the Colt Walker, one of the largest handguns ever made.  Until the advent of the .357 Magnum in the 1930s, the Walker was the world’s most powerful handgun.  It was designed so that if it missed the bad guy but got the horse he was riding, it would kill the horse.  I can’t help but think of an old New Jersey expression (common when I was growing up and one I still use on occasion) that ends with “….and the horse you rode in on, too!”

The last of the original Colt Walkers that changed hands went for over a million bucks not long ago, so I knew that until the ExNotes blog goes more viral (than it already has, that is), I wouldn’t be getting an original Walker anytime soon.  But there’s something even better from a shootability perspective, and that’s the modern reproduction Walkers offered by Uberti.

I always wanted a Walker, and a few months ago I acted on that urge.  I had to wait several months because the Uberti factory in Italy was shut down by the Covid 19 pandemic.  Uberti is back in operation again and my Walker recently arrived.   It’s a good deal.  Unlike a cartridge revolver, here in the Peoples Republik of Kalifornia black powder guns can be shipped direct to your door.

I knew Uberti makes a quality handgun, as I had great experiences with my “tuned” Taylor 1873 Single Action Army in .45 Colt.   That’s one of the two revolvers you see in the photo at the top of this blog.  It’s a cool photo because it shows the relative size of the two guns (the Single Action Army is no pipsqueak, but it’s dwarfed by the Walker).  And, I’m showing off a bit with the photo’s background (it’s the pig hide from my Arizona wild boar expedition with good buddy Paul, who ordered himself a Walker not too long ago).

Robert Duvall as Gus MacCrae in Lonesome Dove, the greatest story ever told (in my opinion). Gus carried a Colt Walker.

I’ve mentioned the Walker Colt before, most notably in the book review we posted on Revolver, the book about Samuel Colt. The Colt Walker also figured prominently in Lonesome Dove, and I thought I’d show one of the many great scenes from that movie here again.

Everybody wants to be Gus MacCrae, I guess, and I’m no exception.  I suspect Paul feels the same way.  So consider this a fair warning:  If Paul and I walk into your establishment and order a whiskey, be quick about it. We don’t like surly bartenders, and we carry Walkers, you know.

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Empire of the Summer Moon

When I’m on a road trip, I sometimes know the history of the area I’m riding through, and I sometimes do not.  I’m always wondering about it, though.  I recently finished reading Empire of the Summer Moon, and it was so good it makes me want to plan another road trip through Texas.  The cover tells what the book is about; what it doesn’t do is tell just how good this book is…

Several things amazed me as I read Empire of the Summer Moon, the first being how it could have not known of it previously.   The only reason I learned of it is that I saw Empire in an airport bookstore a couple of trips ago.

They say you can’t tell a book by its cover, but the cover on Empire appealed to me greatly.  The book was even better.  Much of the action described in it occurred in Texas (and in areas where I used to live in Texas); now I want to return, ride those roads again, and pay more attention this time.  And I will.  Just how good was this book?  Hey, when I finished it, I turned back to the beginning and started reading it again.  That’s good.

Always avoid alliteration?

It was one of the things my 10th grade English teacher drilled into us, although in my case it didn’t take too well.  I always alliterate at every opportunity, and I always appreciate it when others similarly sin.  That’s why this video, which I noticed in my Facebook feed (oops, uh oh, and all that…I did it again) was immediately appealing.  Stetsons, Steers, and Lone Stars…who could refuse to review such a stunningly-subtitled YouTube?